Abstract

In order to improve production and quality of vegetables, farmers need adequate information and reliable sources of information to achieve their goals. Meet their information needs on the behavior of vegetable farming; farmers need to establish a network of communication among farmers. The purpose of this study was: (1) to describe the communication network among vegetable farmers in the village of Egon (2) to analyze the relationship between the characteristics of farmers and communication networks. The unit of analysis is a vegetable farmer. Samples of study are fifty-three farmers sampled using the census. Primary data collection and field observations were conducted during June to July 2012. Data used in this study consisted of primary and secondary data. Sociometric analysis is used to view network communications occur among vegetable farmers. Communication network structures were analyzed using UCINET VI. Data analysis was performed by using Microsoft excel and followed by Spearman rank correlation analysis by using SPSS for windows. The results show that: (1) the description of communication network of vegetable farmers are radial personal network and interlocking personal network , while crop protection communication networks and communication networks of harvest and post harvest is central personal network (2) there was a relation between farmer’ non formal education, farming experience, cosmopolitan level, land area, and tenure with network communications.